Newsletter 2 - Unlocking the Trust Equation in Tech: Why Time is Not on Your Side

Did you know Odin and Loki were blood brothers in Norse Mythology?

In my last letter, I told you about Odin and Loki to describe an awkwardness that exists between people who are predominantly focused on commercial aspects, the business, and those who are technology-oriented. I encouraged all of us to embrace the view that "we are all the business", and I shared my view on a possible framework to reconcile expectations.

"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. It is through action that you may dispel your anxieties and build a foundation of trust within yourself and with others." - Marcus Aurelius

The point: Valuing and working towards trust as a bedrock

Most of us realize that the source of this awkwardness is the lack of a shared paradigm on the key outcomes needed in the pursuit of the cardinal purpose. There is also history. Over the years we have established an understanding that many (not all) technology investments take longer than estimated and invariably end up costing more than expected. Many times, the outcomes delivered are a watered-down set of deliverables that are a “greatest common compromise”, rather than the salient expectation that initiated the effort. This is true when we custom develop or “compose” a solution using enterprise software components where requirements become a result of negotiations; in ERP, where we are all encouraged to deploy “plain vanilla” without customization, or in the case of SAAS where features are developed by the provider to prolong annuity or subscription revenue not the specific utility of the business in question.  Compromise breeds discontent, and discontent foments unhappiness and doubt which in turn, erodes trust. 

I've oversimplified given the promised few page format but as you read, ask yourself how you've experienced these traps and how it affected your work.

And given “typical practice” (sometimes we call it best practice, when it truly is not) there isn't really a basis to establish trust, just typical compromise.

In my opinion, typical practice actually emanates from a misplaced endeavor to build trust. Financial practitioners who may not be steeped in technology intricacies apply general management principles to technology as if it is any other set of investments. This abstraction allows us to evaluate and manage all investments in a common way. The common practice of framing tech investments as finite "Projects" is a carryover from the industrial era, where this model worked well due to slower rates of change. This mindset, though effective for physical infrastructure, falls short in our rapidly evolving tech landscape. While industrial principles have stayed mostly static for decades, technology has undergone transformative changes since the 1970s. The pace of this evolution is exponential, marked by increasing complexity and specialization. In just the last 30 years consider the internet, the mobile phone and now AI. Just examine Tesla and its effect.These are not just technology re-inventions, they have changed society; globally. In my opinion, the window of opportunity to leverage these technologies for true strategic advantage is closing. Companies that fail to act now risk falling irreversibly behind.

We all grudgingly accept a compromise, adopting formal terms like 'capitalization' for in-house software and 'compliance' for policy audits. Given the organism that a corporation is, we further endure multi-layered friction introduced by functions such as governance, procurement, and risk management. If you look at all of the things they exist to establish a bridge over this awkwardness. Particularly, you will notice that none have an alignment towards the four key outcomes or the cardinal purpose. Their intentions and expectations are devoid of the greater purpose and they are just a set of compromises that try to reflect and manage reality for the corporation. “The map is not the territory” is a phrase coined by the Polish-American philosopher and engineer Alfred Korzybski. He used it to convey the fact that people often confuse models of reality with reality itself. 

Before you think of Agile and its manifestos as a way to address this, contemplate how in principle nothing changes. It's another tactic and not a fundamental rethinking of the ways to achieve our cardinal purpose. A report by Scrum Alliance suggests that while Agile adoption is widespread, only about 12% of Agile transformations are successful, indicating that merely having a framework is not a silver bullet ("The 2018 State of Scrum," Scrum Alliance, 2018).

There are people in this group with whom I shared an experience of taking a new to marketplace technology enabled idea (several patents came out of this) for a highly profitable line of business which was being shut down by our competitors and was being evaluated by our employer for a similar fate. We, the business and the technology practitioners, turned a declining business and made it one of the fastest growth categories for that corporation.

 I will refer to this article in HBR: Companies Need to Prove They Can Be Trusted With Technology

This article says, "Individuals’ trust in tech and the companies who develop it has been eroded by innumerable failures. For businesses, it’s no longer acceptable to use technology without taking steps to ensure it’s trustworthy."

Further, it says there are three things that we can do to achieve expectations set by the World Economic Forum’s digital trust community:

1. First investment leaders need to make is to take the time and energy to truly understand the impact of the technologies they create or deploy.

2. After deciding on a vision that includes trustworthy goals, organizations need a plan to act for digital trust.

3. The third big initial investment is in the people who can help the business earn digital trust.

I will talk about people and culture a lot in this newsletter but let's leave that for a subsequent edition. 

I have used a framework now for more than a decade to work on this notion of trust. I call it the "ONE" framework. Operate First, Navigate Second, and Elevate After. 

Operate is always first. Imagine you're in a boat, and it's taking water and will surely sink eventually. What's your focus, steering it, or dreaming of a distant shore or is it to get to bailing and stabilize it? That is the analogy I always contemplate when I think about my priorities.  Let's make sure we have a boat that isn't sinking so that concern does not immobilize us from steering and navigating. Systems that don't work well, because they break down too often and when they do break down, they stay broken for too long are a primary distractor. This could be due to lack of discipline and methodical management or it could be because of growth. No one likes this situation; users hate it, tech people have to sacrifice personal lives, and there is a loss of commercial value because it's reactionary and we can't focus on building in a good consistent way. It's a lose-lose-lose.
The term I used was metronomic. Like clockwork. No drama. Dedicate focus, measurement, time and investment to this first. If you don't; circumstances will make you. In a reactionary, stressful and value eroding way. It doesn't really matter why or how it breaks; the first cardinal expectation of trust is reliability.

Next, lets navigate. There are things that our users need, critical enhancements that get the business moving down the path of its cardinal purpose reliably. When we can reliably expect things to happen as expected  and everyone is dedicated to achieving the cardinal purpose, a shared sense of confidence emerges. So make systems, processes and culture that makes promises and keeps them. Confidence builds trust.

On this bedrock, we can then navigate to truly differentiating. When we don’t worry about things going bump in the night and when we have full confidence on a routine basis that we will not get stymied by deployment problems, by quality issues or underwhelming expectations; we set our eyes higher and expect to soar. Then it is about the artistry that we see occasionally from companies where technology creates groundbreaking outcomes that radically advance the company's cardinal purpose in a very evident way. That creates a feeling across the entire tribe that I describe as “swagger”. Not in an arrogant way, but rather as an innate joy that everyone involved with that investment feels and they build pride in their collective. Shared pride cements trust.

Think of how you work today and do you have this priority framework or some version of it? You probably instinctively do but do you need to formalize it and get it accepted by the folks who influence technology investments? If you actualize it will you not elevate the trust in your collective and will it not lead to more satisfaction?

The Counterpoint:

I argue for a nuanced, trust-based approach to technology management within businesses, implying that technology deserves special treatment compared to other aspects of a business. A counterpoint to this is Nicholas Carr's famous article, "IT Doesn't Matter," published in the Harvard Business Review. Carr argues that information technology has become a commodity, and thus, businesses should manage it like any other commodity — focusing on reducing costs and mitigating risks, rather than using it as a point of strategic differentiation. He suggests that the managerial complexity often associated with IT projects is better simplified through commoditization. Source: Carr, N. (2003). "IT Doesn't Matter". Harvard Business Review. 

An article in the Harvard Business Review by Eric McNulty argues that the key to managing any initiative, technology-based or not, lies in effective general management principles. These include clear communication, transparent decision-making, and building a culture of trust within the organization There’s that trust word again!). The article, titled "Why Generalists Are Better at Managing Complexity," suggests that managers who excel at these general principles are more adept at solving complex problems and navigating uncertainty, which are often associated with technology projects. McNulty's view contends that the roots of distrust in tech projects are not fundamentally different from any other sector and that effective general management can bridge this gap. Source: McNulty, E. (2019). "Why Generalists Are Better at Managing Complexity". Harvard Business Review.

The Aside

In the realm of modern physics, especially as described by Capra in "The Tao of Physics," we find that our understanding of reality is far from absolute. Guided by Heisenberg's insights into subatomic particles, we've come to realize that what we consider "reality" is best described in terms of probabilities and potentialities. This challenges the classical notion that the universe is made up of fixed, determinable entities. Furthermore, our language—shaped by the collective human experience dating back thousands of years—is fundamentally inadequate for articulating these complex nuances.

For individuals in leadership roles, this should serve as a sobering reminder: our grasp of any situation is inherently limited by the constraints of human understanding and expression. As a result, we should approach decision-making with humility, embracing diverse perspectives and recognizing the value of collective wisdom. This mindset can guide us in grappling with the complexities and uncertainties inherent in our unique experiences, encouraging a more mindful and self-aware approach to decision-making.

Take care of yourself.

-abhi